[applause] >> thanks. it's great to be here. i'm going to put myself on the clock so i don't talk too long and then we have lots of time for questions. i want to begin by recounting something that occurred about five or six years ago. my wife and i were at one of these conferences and the conference was on aging and how to deal with aging. how many people are interested in the subject of aging? raise your hand. [laughter] you all are. at age 69 i am deeply interested in the subject of aging. they have psychiatrists and physicians and academics on this panel and james watson who was

the co-discover of dna, the nobel prize winner was also on the panel. and so they had this discussion and it went on for an hour and watson said nothing. then at the end, zero comments. now you know the power of silence. it's just overwhelming. so finally the moderator asked him so dr. watson you have done so much work, how do you deal with aging? so he leaned into the microphone and he said, there's only one way to deal with aging. and that is stay away from old people. [laughter] he nailed it. my wife and i were sitting behind dr. henry kissinger who

was in the audience and they handed out this little sheets where you did self scoring. on your lifestyle and how often do you be red meat and how many bowel movements do you have a weak? general questions and then you got points and you added it up. it told you how many years you had to live. how many people here want to know how many years you have to live? as skeptical as you might rightly be about the scoring sheet, it's very interesting and kissinger was filling this out when all the intensity hunched over so we availed ourselves of the reporter's freedom of information act. [laughter]

and looked over his shoulder. to see how many years he had to live. he added it all up and it turned out that he died four years ago. [laughter] not happy. i have seen kissinger really unhappy, but this was the depth of unhappiness. and so he looked around and this was done in pencil and he erased all the answers. [laughter] and he rescored. it turns out the last time he ate red meat was 1949. [laughter] how often do you exercise a weak? seven, eight, nine, 10 times a week. he rescored and it turned out he had eight years to live. now what is the lesson here?

kissinger is the master of this. read his book, listen to him. he rescored history like no one else. [laughter] but it is the basic problem in journalism and trying to understand politics, trying to understand what's going on in the world and i was telling the story the other night about al gore having dinner with him and sitting next to him. having dinner sitting next to al gore is taxing. and it's really unpleasant. ask him how much do we know about really goes on in the white house and he said, 1%. i believe it's higher but if you really step back we often don't know what's going on. that's the dilemma and i want to talk briefly and then answer

questions about the new book i have done which is just out called the price of politics. it's about three and a half years of negotiations between the obama white house and the republicans in congress and the democrats. how they essentially tried to bring the federal government's financial house into some kind of order. now the answer is they failed. we have the federal government whose financial house is in total disorder, total disarray. it is a historic rob him. i covered it for three and a half years but we will be back in about three -- for five months because to try to put it in english we had $16 trillion of ious out standing in the

world and the negotiations last year, they agreed to raise what they called the debt ceiling so the government could our 08 couple more chilean dollars. we are going to run out of that in january or february of next year so they are going to have to go back and get congress to authorize more chilean's of dollars of borrowing. as you know the republicans and people in congress don't want to so there's going to be a bloody negotiation unless they can work a deal. so in a sense this is the book about the past that but it's about the present. it's about where we are going and kind of what the country's future is. if you think about it, i would argue that the inability of the government to fix this or a wing death/deficit issue is the

number one problem facing the country. in the book, vice president biden's chief of staff says it was an economic cuban missile crisis in 2011 and there is so much evidence that it's the biggest threat to the future of the country. something that has to be fixed. we are on the path to becoming europe and greece. you just can't keep our wing money. there is a spending addiction in this country and we need some sort of intervention, serious intervention. in the book what i attempt to do is take people to the meetings in the white house, congress or

the meetings between the president and the leaders can show you exactly what happened. because of the luxury of time and the generosity of "the washington post" of my publishers i have the time to get the meeting notes and get the exact detail to interview president obama and speaker boehner and the key players in this. i just want to take one quick snapshot from what happens that we didn't know about, which is critical. when the talks blew up last summer and the president was quite angry, quite upset, he called the congressional leaders to the white house over here. saturday morning at 11:00 both the democrats and the republicans said we have to work out something and the democratic

and republican leaders were trying to work out their own deal. and harry reid for democratic leaders said to the president, mr. president could you please leave the room? i have covered presidents for 40 years and i know of no other time that anybody asked the president to leave the meeting in his own house that he had called. i asked the president about this. how did it feel to be voted off the island in your own house? because that is what happened. he said he's not going to stand on protocol. the problem needed to be solved. the next day he called the democratic leaders to the white house at 6:00 on a sunday night and harry reid is fair and nancy pelosi, the house leader and the relations between, among the democrats are so not solved that

harry reid's has his chief of staff make a presentation on the deal that reid is is trying to workout with the republicans. in the course of doing that, david kron says to the president of the united states in its own house, i am disappointed in this white house and hugh for not having a plan. literally again somebody reading out the president in the oval office for not having it land. after the meeting, harry reid said to his chief of staff quote you stood up to him. he needed to hear it. no one was telling him. now think about it for a moment. why doesn't the second most powerful democrat in washington

have to use his chief of staff as a lever to send a message to the president of the united states? i was talking to somebody from amazon.-com the other day and as you may know they defied red state blue state and most of the hoax selling and red states and republican states democratic states and i said where does this look fall? he said well it's purple. [laughter] because it has information about both sides and it shows that there is a war going on just in the democratic hardy but in the republican party, perhaps much more intense. there are scenes where john boehner is trying to work a deal with the president to do tax reform and entitlement reform

and the majority leader calls people like paul ryan who is now running for vice president with gum in a romney, calls ryan and some of the other key republicans and they say my gosh, we have got a speaker who is doing deals with the president. the speaker is a runaway horse. how do we get control of him? speaker boehner told me that his staff was so worried that the staff members came to see him in his office on the second floor of the capital and said, you have got to stop trying to do a deal with the president. if you keep doing this you are going to risk your speakership. the president said, and i talked to him interestingly enough, he said he realizes the magnitude of all of this. as does speaker boehner, key

democrats in key republicans realize what it is. he literally said to me i would willingly lose an election if i could solve these problems. it is that serious. tim geithner the treasury secretary in the book is quoted, thousands of boards ford's telling the president you have got to do something about this problem. we have to fix it fix it. literally we will close down the american economy and turn it into a global economy if they do not solve the issue of this runaway spending and get some white stop borrowing in excess. he tells the president of the united states ,-com,-com ma if we default on her obligations in our ious, we will trigger a depression worse than the

1930s. does anybody here remember the 1930s depression? you probably don't. i don't. i was not born but i have read about it. it was a calamity for the world. tim geithner said to the president, if we default on this, if we do not solve this problem, we will have an economic catastrophe that will make the 2008 financial crisis a footnote in the history books. does anyone remember the 2008 financial crisis? that is coming not from some columnists or journalists. that is coming from the secretary of the treasury. if you think about this there is

a mail you running scared. if you think about after 9/11, terrorist attacks. one thing the country did collectively is they set up tsa, the screening at airports. there is all kinds of very significant work done to make sure terrorists did not get into this country. ..

they are not running scared on this issue. if you look at it, it is the thing we know about that is going to do us in. and we have to fix it. go for a moment to the presidential campaign going on before us, what are they talking about? not this. not the thing that is most -- why are they not talking about it? >> part of it is the responsibility of people in my business, the media. the candidates are not being asked about it enough. it's also complicated, it's also something the candidates, if you look at what they have said on the issue of both obama and romney's plans are vague. if i were moderating the debate that is coming october 3rd.

i would spend half asking what would you do specifically? [applause] give us the diagnoses of the plan and tell us what you are going do. part of the question is there has to be a willingness to comprise, and there has to be a willingness to do things that are painful for your side. i'm going stop there and we'll do questions one more story. remember years ago ahead of simon and shuster took me to dinner in new york city one of the restaurants you would never want to go where you have to pay. [laughter] enand he said what is your next book about? i said i haven't decided. i'm going do thinking, reading,

research, and he looked at me and said what? i said, i want to do thinking, reading, reporting, weighing the alternative. he said why are you going to waste your time? i said that's what you try to do. he said no, you are one of authorses. i need to know right now tonight what your next book is going to be. i said i need to know. he's one of the people who grinds on you and you're at dinner alone no matter what would come up he would bring the subject up. do a book about this, or that? he would grind away. you may know people like this. you may work for somebody like this. even better you might be married to someone like that. he wouldn't let up. finally at the end, i said to him i figured out what my next

book is going to be. he said what? an expose of the publishing business in new york city. [laughter] and instead of showing disappointment he said that's a terrific idea. i have a great tight for you. i don't think there are any great titles left. i said one, your book an expose on the publishing business in new york city would be called "my last book." [laughter] and he meant it. [laughter] okay. [laughter] [applause] questionings. open mic. go ahead. >> i want to ask you something that is alluding to the comment on al gore. you know that you have been studying the white house for forty years. you know people have their own perspective. they want to be saying things.. if you're the president you have

to listen to all the people. over your forty years, how did the presidents react? which ones really did a good job listening and making decisions? >> that's a great question. in journalism, the great art, it's hard is to really listen. and the key to getting people to talk is take them as seriously as they take themselves. that's one common feature. most people in government, every president, they take themselves seriously. you find increasingly with all the presidents i have tried to understand that the more time they get in office, the more they like to talk and the less they like to listen. that's a problem. and i was reading the george cannon biography, one of the great books that diplomat who really established the

containment policy. at one point he writes in the diary when he is made ambassador to using yugoslavia there's a treacherous curtain that falls on you. it happens to everyone. it happens ten times to presidents. that treacherous curtain of deference and everyone is going, mr. president, mr. president, what a president like any leader needs is somebody to tell him the truth. here. >> this upcoming election -- the inauguration is described is going to be the lame duck session of all lame ducks. i wanted to ask you the same question you would ask the candidates, which would be something like we're approaching a fiscal cliff and this is all

going happen shortly after or just prior to the inauguration or sometime in january. what is the -- what duoyou see or predict or needs to be done to avoid this fiscal cliff? >> i don't have to decide, happily. i don't know. fiscal cliff is a euphemism, it connects believe me, to the value of everything you have. a house, a bank account, an investment, so forth. ting all in jeopardy. it should be called the financial time bomb, and it's tax increases, spending cuts, it's also what i spend a lot of time in the price writing about where so you to extend the debt

ceiling. the white house, whoever is there has to go to the congress and say, agree, you know? we're borrowing a trillion dollars. think about -- i was trying to figure out -- somebody was asking how much is a trillion dollars. that's about $3,000 for every one in the united states nap is a lot of money. they have to borrow that next year just to pay for what is going on. and how they are going do that. how they arrange it, i don't know. it's going to be, you know, i may have my second book . >> hi. in your research i was wondering how much you came across the discussion about dealing with the serious problem of jobs in it country. we're in a major depression, many say. since the great depression. it's contrary or contradictory to be concerned about the budget

deficit when you take steps to have a negative effect on the economy. how much would it take effect? >> an excellent question. and of course, you create jobs by growing the economy. and you have to not only grow the economy. you need to stabilize it. you can't have the situation we're in where the interest rates are right in the basement, and as someone said, you can't jump out of the basement. that is as low as it is. and if people stop trusting u.s. treasuries, the $16 trillion of debt we have out there interest rates are i going to skyrocket. interest payments will go up annually, potentially by hundreds of billions of dollars, we would have more deficit. there would be less trust. you wrecked the government's role in the economy. those are my secret notes i'm going pick them up.

[laughter] so so you to stabilize that. and you have to figure out a way to get the economy to grow. and that's a long-term proposition, which will lead to more jobs. but you're right, there's contradiction in all of this. but in trying to create more jobs, you can't mess up with the overall problem of the trust worthiness and credit worthiness, you're shaking your head. we'll talk after wards. next. >> hi. over the course of your career, you had the most incredible access to all of these great politicians in history and even today. i was wondering out of everyone you have met, who surprised you the most? who is like the least, like how they are perceived in history and the current media? >> wow. that's like asking the question about the creation of the universe.

[laughter] they're all interesting. they all have their , i mean, i just get fascinated with the story of government and what really works. quite frankly, what we don't know. what is hidden? i remembered for a book i did called "the agenda" on bill clinton, and it was about his economic plan. i interviewed him once, and it was on background. he's talked about it. i have talked about it. you go in to the oval office and -- so this was early 1994, and clinton drills you with the eye contact that is absolutely a gravitational force. i have never seen anyone maintain eye contact like bill clinton. to -- it's unblinking. he just stares and of course, it

creates a sense of intint intimacy and and time slows down. he wanted to be president ever since he was president. he decided to contribute all organs in the body to the task. [laughter] including the eyes. [laughter] and you can train yourself. you just don't blink. and we're going through this and i thought it's a great interview, and she so focused. i even started thinking, he realizes how brilliant my questions are. [laughter] which they weren't. and i thought, this, you know, there's this amazing interrue

and i went back and had somebody transcribe it. i read the transcript without the eye contact. it was mush. he didn't say anything new, didn't say anything that was particularly useful. i think i used one sentence in the whole book from the interview, but and here is the essence of the clinton communications style. it felt good. [laughter] it felt wonderful. [laughter] and if you look at the reagan tapes, when he was president everyone called him the great communicators. he's a nothing compared to clinton. clinton -- i remember interviewing -- there was one meeting whereabout six or seven people were in the meeting with clinton and i asked them each what happened. there was one woman who didn't say anything. i said what did you think of the meeting? she said i know he agrees with

me. [laughter] wow. ymedz if you can goad them anyway. >> my question is a little bit simple. it seems to me where we're at right now is almost at the end of the current monetary system. how much talk has there been in your circle about ending the current monetary issue. going to be a united federal reserve note? that's a technical economic issue. you can't bail out on the $16 trillion and iou we have. you just can't. it -- it would be the disaster in the calamity. i don't think you can do this with a magic wand. i don't think -- i think the if you go back to the 1980s, what reagan and tip o'neal to save

social security. they worked a deal where payroll tax went up the most progressive tax in the country, they agreed to cut back on some benefits. part of the deal was -- what is that noise? is gordon out there somewhere? [laughter] you're too young to remember gordon. [laughter] o'neal and reagan, part of the deal was raising the tax, cutting some benefits, and so o'neal said to reagan, look, you go out and say whatever you want about what this deal is. and i won't contradict you. i'm going go out and say describe the deal the way i want to describe. and don't you contradict me. deal made.

gone. no one objected. it was voted through the congress. people who ran -- i know a couple of senators who ran, i think first in 1988, like john kerry, said in his campaign the issue never came up because there was no clash. there was no conflict. part of the deal was, i mean, look, obama and speaker boehner would have a much harder time making a deal because they had problems in both of their parties, as they say. in talking about this with them, if they had -- what is the word? courage. to say let's make a deal and get before the microphone and camera and say this is what it's going to be. it's going to be painful. we're going ask all democrats and republicans to vote for it. we have to protect our financial

future because that's what it's about at the end. they essentially told me they thought it would work. they could have done it, and of course they did not. yes? >> that's a good lead no to my question. the grand bargain that came to the floor toward the end. the president put entitlement on the table. i don't recall the world unralphing from the notion. how real do you suppose that proposal was and are we likely to revisit that? >> it's getting in to detail. i have whole chapter on this. it has to do with -- it including three more republicans. campaign manager in twaict has tremendous influence in the obama white house. am i pointing the right direction? is the white house that way? >> yes. >> and he said we have to do

something. we have ask for more revenue, and one of clinton's -- obama's other advisers came in and said, if you don't ask for more revenue you will be part of the presidency, the weakest presidency in the history of mankind. imagine being in that situation getting that advice from one of your aids. the president picked up the phone and said, we need more revenue, he insists it was an offer speaker boehner is equally insistent it was a demand. i talked to all the people now, no one else was in the room. there's no secret tape recording of that phone conversation i know about. if anyone does, please give me a call. [laughter] but why do that on the phone? you shouldn't do that on the phone. you should have other people there so it's carefully, you know, i mean, it was changing or

making a proposal at the end that set this off on a track. it is a very dramatic story and brings to the floor the issues that we're going to be dealing with in three or four months. yes. >> you may have already alluded this somewhat in answering a previous question. congressional approval is at record lows, and people left, right, center 0 talk about how broken government is. what are those things from your perspective that have broken it? what are the things that, if they were removed individual or structure that would help fix it? what is the path forward? you know, that's is above my pay grade. it's enough of the task to try to find out what happened and so forth. and to -- you do play in your own mind what should have happened. what could have happened. it's a pattern, it's gone on a

long time. a lot of people in their books on this. there's an analysis saying it's all the republicans' fault. there's analysis that it's all the democrats' fall. it's all obama's fault. i'm purple on that question. in the book i'll conclude that they both have responsibility for this. [applause] it's a shame it's not part of the dialogue going on in the election. we're going pay a price for this and just, you know, note on your blackberry we talked about this september 23rd. when the bridges start burning in four or five months, i was saying this to somebody, if you remember 9/11, in august of

2001, six weeks before 9/11, there was a top secret intelligence briefing given to president george w. bush and the headline of that briefing was, we ran it in "the washington post after it became a big issue was "bin laden determined to strike in u.s.." think about that. you're the president of the united states, you gate top secret report saying bin laden determined to strike in the u.s. you should do something. well, we know not enough was done. we know that the government across the board failed to do what was necessary on potential terrorism. we had 9/11. i tell you that theme song, the big music in this book i have written that i tried to present

is u.s. economy about to falter. and it's a warning. it is -- it's disappointing, to be honest with you it's agonizing it can't get in to the dialogue because we have a presidential election six weeks from now -- whether it's obama or romney they have to sit there and this is what they're going to be spending their time on. yes. >> hi. i just -- oh. [inaudible] i wanted to say, first of all, that i am right in the middle of the politics. i'm in the middle of the chapter 20. it's an incredible book. thank you for writing it. my question is . >> i know lot of adults who can't read it. [laughter] >> thank you.

so my question is, i'm at the end of middle school, i want to become a journalist when i grow up. [applause] okay. [applause] so you have had an incredible career and you're one of my idols. i wanted to ask you any tips for young people like me who want to become a journalist and want to see the world? [applause] >> you have chosen perhaps prematurely a great career. i often said if someone came from another planet came to earth and spent a year and went back and said who are the people who have the best jobs in america? the visitor would say the journalists. why? because as a journalist you get to make momentary entry in to people's lives when they are interesting and when they are

boring get out. there's no other profession if you're a lawyer, you're stuck with clients. it may be boring. it you're a doctor you are stuck with patients. it may be routine. in journalism, the question every morning when you go to work or whenever it is, what is going on what is going on meaning and what don't we know about it? and if you think about it, good luck. let me know when you're looking for a job. [applause] [laughter] [applause] what is interesting, he's tell that the book is forty chapters long and he's half way through on chapter twenty. >> i'll challenge you. as a nurse practitioner you get to be involved with the most important times 77 their life. i love that job.

>> well, said. but my question is, about the freedom of information act. small time people like me can't get the same information you can. for example, i represent my little citizens association, and i asked lincoln county for information on where they're spending money in a certain area. and they would charge me $850 to get that. another time i asked they said it would be about 3,000 or 4,000 boxes of stuff so you to go through. how as a small time person who already has a full-time job. how do we work with the freedom of information act to get the information we want? >> okay. somebody from the library of congress, doctor billington was asking me in the movie version of "all the president's men." the reporters go to the library of congress to long at what the books the white house has been checking out. somebody said, can you got

library of congress and find out what other people have been checking out? no. but how did we get somebody? we went to somebody and it's in the movie, we said, sorry dr. billington, how about breaking the rules? how about helping us. we're not going to is misuse this information. go the people who have those documents and say, look, why don't you help me? give them to me. you have them here. i'll get them copy or something like that. and an appeal -- it's amazing. in fact i think everyone is -- and the united states is a secret chair believer in the first amendment, and appeal to conscious. if you can't get them to help you. call me, i'll call them on your behalf.

[laughter] [applause] okay? [applause] >> i'm sorry we didn't have . >> e-mail is@woodward b at "washington post".com. if anyone has any information don't hesitate. >> last question? >> sorry. i'm over time. >> one last question. >> hi. a big fan of your work. unlike the young man who just came before me. i still haven't had a chance to read your book. i look forward to. it seems like theme throughout the book is both sides do it color purple bipartisan thing. of course, politics is very much about having two different sides with admittedly different views of america and different policy solutions going out to the public. presenting their view and having the public decide through election or civil discourse what policy and direction they want to take. i'm interested in terms of the -- you got democratic and republican leadership and your

view of the debt ceiling debacle whether you found that one side or another was more stubborn to negotiation or concession than the other side. >> that's a e great question. i put responsibilities on both sides. but i do say at the end that if you look at president's reagan, clinton criticism as you might in lot of area. by and large on important national business, they worked their will. they found a way, and in this case, obama did not find a way. the leader of this country is the president, and if things go well or not well it's going to be these things happened in the obama era. not the john boehner era. presidents have to lead and presidents have to learn how. in this case, we got up to the goal line, he didn't take it

over the end. the finish line here, and so we live in a country with those where the maximum burden is on the president, but if you -- if you look at the book you will see that dealing with the republicans is not really an easy thing. as i left the oval office, president obama said, you know, if bob dole or gingrich had been here, i would have been able to work a deal. thank you so much. [applause] ..